By Amanda Durish Cook
MISO on Monday introduced temporary measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak, converting all in-person meetings to conference calls and barring visitors from its three offices until further notice.
The prohibition on visitors covers RTO offices in Carmel, Ind.; Eagan, Minn.; and Little Rock, Ark. Indiana and Minnesota both recently recorded their first cases of COVID-19, while Arkansas so far has no confirmed cases.
MISO’s measures come about a week after other RTOs announced they were suspending in-person meetings. (See NYISO, MISO Join Grid Operators in Suspending In-person Meetings and RTOs Take Steps to Address COVID–19’s Spread.)
MISO has tightened access to its control room and put a hold on all control room tours. It has also suspended all non-essential business travel for its employees.
The conference call policy applies to this week’s March 10 Interconnection Process Working Group meeting and March 11 Planning Advisory Committee meeting and Integrated Roadmap workshop. MISO doesn’t have any in-person meetings scheduled March 16-20. It said decisions about future meetings will be “communicated as they are made.”
“The plan is to continue the conference-call only policy for the foreseeable future,” MISO spokesperson Allison Bermudez told RTO Insider.
The RTO is conducting a reassessment of attendance at its Board Week in New Orleans March 24-26, asking all registered attendees to change their registration status by March 12 if they no longer plan on traveling to the meetings.
Bermudez said MISO leadership is still evaluating the board meetings in New Orleans and will communicate their decision with attendees.
MISO said its “top priorities are the health and well-being of our employees and stakeholders and the reliability of the bulk electric system.”
In a March 9 message to stakeholders, CEO John Bear said, “MISO’s Incident Management Team continues to track the situation closely and is consulting with experts on appropriate safety steps that help protect employees and ensure grid reliability.” The RTO has initiated more cleaning practices, and employees and contractors are similarly limiting large, in-person gatherings. He also said MISO is prepared to have employees work from remote locations.
“All areas within MISO have business continuity plans that enable work to continue from alternative locations if necessary. We will continue to monitor developments and implement additional protocols as necessary to minimize risk to the MISO community,” MISO said, adding that new developments will be posted on its Twitter page and misoenergy.org.
